Ann DeMatteo honored by friends, family, coworkers at services

New Haven Register's photojournalists Peter Casolino (left) and Arnold Gold (right) carries the casket out of the Church of the Blessed Sacrement, Hamden, after the funeral service. Darren Yip/Register

HAMDEN >> The Rev. Daniel G. Keefe said Wednesday that he's sure Ann DeMatteo spent many hours staring at a keyboard trying to come up with the right words in her news stories and inspirational columns (and he was right).

But Keefe, addressing mourners at DeMatteo's funeral, noted the irony that it is impossible to define her "in mere words," but only "bits and pieces" that somehow come together to create a clear picture.

"Ann was always known and will always be remembered as someone who dove into life head first," Keefe said. "Other people fit that description, but what sets Ann apart is her intense, almost laser-like focus on the person there with her at the moment. For Ann, the only thing that mattered is what happened to you. "

That quality helped make DeMatteo an extraordinary reporter, columnist, co-worker, friend and relative -- especially the best aunt.

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Dematteo's send off at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Hamden was fitting: loved ones, co-workers and local officials filled the church to the brim; there were all the traditions of the faith that she had grown so near to in recent years and at the same time, there was also a touch of the non-traditional, such as speculation about how she might enter heaven organizing a karaoke party, flitting a boa around her neck and singing a Broadway show tune.

As her casket left the church, Catherine Kenzel sang "What I did for Love" from the musical A Chorus Line: "Kiss today goodbye, the sweetness and the sorrow. Wish me luck, the same to you...Love is never gone. As we travel on."

DeMatteo, 56, died Sunday after a long battle with cancer. Keefe noted that during chemotherapy and other tough treatments, DeMatteo showed just the right amounts of patience, strength, vulnerability, faith and skepticism.

As a Register beat reporter for 34 years, spent mostly covering Hamden and North Haven, DeMatteo rocked it with local news stories on issues that helped shape the politics and quality of life in those towns. She took delight in issues such as planning and zoning that many consider mundane, but she also broke the big ones, such as an investigation into the higher incidence of brain cancer among Pratt & Whitney employees in North Haven. Ann ended her career as managing editor of the Middletown Press, so determined that she often sent police briefs from her hospital bed.

DeMatteo was dedicated to journalism -- albeit, putting her 10 daily hours in mostly after 2 p.m. -- but she had so many other time-consuming social, community and charity activities, that colleagues marveled.

Keefe note most people have 24 hours in the day, but DeMatteo had 36. Some speculate she managed that by being 40 minutes late for everything.

"She was blessed with energy and determination to make the most of her time," Keefe said.

A board member of the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Organization, DeMatteo had a passion for pageants because she loved to mentor young women, helping them gain confidence and showcase their talents.

On the tribute-filled Facebook page Friends of Ann DeMatteo, Heidi Alice Voight, a former Miss Connecticut from Milford who grew up in poverty and was raped at 15-- making those weighty issues part of her Miss America platform -- wrote, "Annie changed my life...She helped me fill out my first application to enter a local pageant and told me 'you could really be Miss America one day.' Annie inspired me and lifted me up out of the darkness... I can't imagine where I'd be today if she hadn't believed in me all those years ago."

At DeMatteo's gravesite, Register friends tossed pink and white confetti onto DeMatteo's coffin, to make a beautiful mix with the flowers, an idea from Register photographer Melanie Stengel.

"I just didn't want it to end without that celebratory part of her," Stengel said. "There was that really funny, goofy, live it up part of her personality."

A tribute written by friend Meg Barone and read at Wednesday's funeral by friend Marietta Mattei said DeMatteo took on her disease as she took on life: "with dignity, bravery and incredible strength."